The mind is everything. What you think you become.
I got down from the train and heard the polite sound, Sir, would you like to polish your shoes? I saw my shoes were not clean, dust was there. A thought came to mind, in the morning I was in which thoughts I forgot to polish my shoes? After Few seconds I came back to the present. I looked towards the person and said yes, I want to polish my shoes. I don’t know what happened in my brain, I am attracted to the person by seeing his polite, gentle facial expressions. I put my right shoe on his desk. On that summer day, I was standing sweating, he said sir, just turn a little so you will get air from the fan. I turned a little and felt a little better than before.
The Shoe polisher was busy with his work and my mind caught me in its wandering thoughts. The thought was, how he tackles his mind so he can work on such a summer day just to get 10 rupees per person and I used to double and triple that just to have tea. How will he earn in a month? I am sure more than it will be in my pocket as of now. I have more money, education status then also I don’t have that satisfaction on my face which he has. As a curiosity, I asked, How you can be happy on such a summer day to earn such little money?” He smiled and said, I need money for the survival of my family and happiness is a choice of my mind. I said I am sorry I didn’t get it. He said I am an uneducated person and I am not an intellectual like you but I know one thing that is I have a choice of doing my work in tension or being happy. My mind prefers to work while being happy. My mind says I am happy so I look happy. I was just listening. a few seconds later he said sir, ‘Done’. I paid him with the same smile which he gave me.
The shoe polisher reminded me that I forgot the quote of Buddha “The Mind is everything, what you think you become”.
Let’s understand the neuroscience of the Quote of the Buddha.
Neuroscience is the science of Neuro. The neuro means neurons, from which our nervous system is made. In short, neuroscience means the scientific study of the nervous system.
What is the mind?
Our five senses bring all the information from outside and inside the body. This information gets compared with the past information and the output of this comparison is found in our act. First, before the act, these senses create the thought. This thought creation of the brain is called Mind. In short, the working process of the brain is called the Mind.
Mind is the creator so it’s everything.
Our brain is made of nerve cells or Neurons. The neurons of each part of the brain communicate electrochemically with each other. This communication makes the neural networks. As we saw above the story that shoe polisher men had two choices. first doing the work with frustration and second work with happiness. Frustration and happiness are the two different neural networks that are connected to a different part of the brain. The left side of the prefrontal cortex is connected with a positive approach like happiness and the right side of the prefrontal cortex is connected with a negative approach like frustration.
That shoe polisher man activates the left side of the prefrontal cortex that’s why the dopamine starts to flow and that glows the face of the shoe polisher man.
So if you think as happy, you look happy and Vice versa.